We've made it!

Brycen has completed quite the potty training journey!  He first started going on the potty last year in September at just 1 1/2 years old.  Of course, we knew this was just a fluke, but he continued to go daily, sometimes multiple times per day for months afterwards when we would sit him on his potty seat.  At first, we thought he would be a breeze and he'd be completely potty trained by 2 years old! What an accomplishment... then reality set in.

We had multiple potty books and at first had fun reading while sitting in the bathroom. Well, he was never quite ready on his own terms.  There was a time between February and April that going potty was a point of contention and he refused to go.  It was frustrating for us, but we knew he was still young yet.

During the summer, he had the opportunity to see Addie and Peyton going potty at Jean's house all of the time and he would often go as well, but was never to the point where he told us before he needed to go.  From the beginning, we rewarded Brycen with stickers and we had gone through multiple sticker boards for his hundreds of stickers.  We would bring the potty seat with us on trips to Grandparent's houses and he would go at routine times.  He got in the habit of always going after every meal and before bath time.

The big change came when two different events happened- new school and moving to the new house.  Brycen was still in cloth diapers when he started his new school but I am sure his attitude changed a little bit in his new environment.  He noticed all of the other kids in his classroom lining up for potty time and going to the bathroom multiple times each day and I'm sure he wanted to be classified as a big kid like those who wore underwear, too.

When we moved to our new house, we finally had time to commit to Brycen's potty training efforts.  Before we were split between two homes on the weekends and our new house didn't have plumbing until days before we moved in.  It was difficult to provide consistency at that time.  After we moved in, we started setting the timer on the microwave for every hour and made a habit of going when the timer went off.  When we were doing this we let him wear his underwear and he loved it!  There were times where we by-passed the sticker and rewarded him with candy corn and he caught on pretty quickly.

I'd say within two weeks of the timer and reminding him to go after a length of time he was potty trained.  We've taken long car rides, been to church, and out in public shopping or at a restaurant multiple times without any accidents.  That is of today, November 5th.  :)  We still use pull-ups at night, not necessarily because he's had accidents (only one) but because we have a package of them to use and it provides a safety net.

We're proud of Brycen!